{"collection":"Texts of Judaism","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_jud_zdm_zdm001_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_jud_zdm_zdm001_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_jud_zdm_zdm001_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/jud/zdm/zdm001.htm","summary":"This is a scholarly-esoteric introduction to a translation of the *Sepher Zohar* (Book of Light), the foundational text of Jewish Kabbalah, written from a late-19th-century Theosophical perspective that positions Kabbalistic philosophy as a universal current running through Western mysticism and Eastern thought alike. The text traces Kabbalah's legendary origins \u2014 from Moses receiving it on Sinai and transmitting it through Aaron, the elders, and eventually Solomon \u2014 through the ancient Jewish occult schools called \"schools of the prophets,\" and then through the Essenes and their allegorical scripture reading, to the historical figure of Rabbi Simeon ben Jochai, who composed the Zohar while hiding from Roman persecution in a cave. A distinctive and recurring interpretive move is the author's demystification of biblical miracles by reading them as coded references to organized occult fraternities \u2014 most notably, the \"two ravens\" feeding Elijah are recast as two members of a secret lodge, and Alexander the Great's welcoming doves as members of an Egyptian occult society. The introduction is explicitly aimed at readers of Madame Blavatsky's *Isis Unveiled* and *The Secret Doctrine*, framing the Zohar as the source that Blavatsky drew on but left untranslated. Anyone interested in the history of Western esotericism, Theosophy, or the Kabbalah's reception in 19th-century occultism will find this a useful \u2014 if theosophically biased \u2014 orientation to the Zohar's intellectual context.","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"Zohar: Preface","tradition":"Texts of Judaism","translated_text":null,"word_count":12758}